Council leaders are bidding for £65 million of Government cash to tackle ‘increased’ congestion in the city centre – and kick-start an ambitious project that would enable 5,500 homes to be built.

The windfall would go towards the planned £113 million ‘East West’ connection from Hanley to Bentilee and help with the long-awaited completion of the city centre ring road

And Stoke-on-Trent City Council hope the scheme would ease the notable pressure on the existing heavily used routes along with ‘unlocking’ land for developers.

Councillor Randy Conteh, cabinet member for housing, communities and safer city, said: “Both road schemes have long been identified as necessary to alleviate increased congestion and will deliver a highway network befitting a competitive and ambitious city and support our economic aims.”

Land between Century Street and York Street, in Hanley, which will form part of the link road

One part of the multi-million project will involve the completion of the final section of the Potteries Way ring road, between Etruria Road and Waterloo Road. In turn this would open up the vacant Century Oils site off Century Street to development.

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Meanwhile the East West connection will also include the resurrected plans for the £51 million Hanley-Bentilee link road, which has already been assigned £8.5 million of Local Growth Fund cash. Detailed plans for the bypass have yet to be published, but it is due to open up swathes of brownfield land around the Berryhill Fields area.

It has been estimated that the bypass will unlock land with capacity for more than 1,700 homes to be built, and remove constraints on other sites south-east of the city centre, where a further 3,800 homes could be erected.

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Council chiefs, who are looking to secure the grant from the £2.3 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, believe the scheme will result in ‘significant economic and wider benefits’.

A report to cabinet states: “In essence the bid was for transport infrastructure that connects densely populated suburban areas to the employment centres and other residential hubs in the city centre.

“The new link will re-route traffic flows from the existing highway corridors facilitating improved journey times and reliability, in particular for the many buses operating on these corridors; and provide new sustainable transport infrastructure.

“The scheme would also provide a more resilient and efficient transport network and improve workforce mobility and business efficiency.”

Brownfield site between Eaton Park and Hanley which will form part of the link road

If the Government funding is secured for the East West connection, the council will provide £16 million, with £8.6 million from the local enterprise partnership and £23.4 million expected from the private sector.

The council’s funding bids have been backed by all three city MPs along with Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP.

If the council’s initial bid for the East West project is accepted, a full business case will have to be submitted by spring 2018, with a final announcement on the successful schemes expected in the summer.

Jonathan Bellamy, chairman of the City Centre Partnership, welcomed the planned improvements to the road network.

He said: “The vision for Stoke-on-Trent city centre is of growth. Already, the Smithfield site will contribute up to 1,700 new jobs, whilst other parts of the city centre – particularly in the Cultural Quarter, at intu Hub, Etruria Mills and Festival Park – are seeing increased provision of the shopping, dining and retail offer. On the horizon there is still the planned Unity Walk with 20 new retail units to come.

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“All this means more jobs for local people, and a greater demand to access the city centre for consumers. Making the access routes into the city centre as swift and as efficient as possible is very important to facilitating this growth, and if it will also open up opportunities for new housing closer to the city centre then that is an added bonus – making the connection between people’s places of work and where they live a more attractive proposition.”

Motorists have also backed plans to tackle congestion the city centre. Mark Leake, aged 29, of Bradeley, who works as a plasterer, said: “Roads in Hanley are getting busier, especially with the Hive and things like that. I think if they are having these developments the roads need to be better.”